Kate Bornstein - gender theorist, performance artist, author - is set to change lives with her compelling memoir. Wickedly funny and disarmingly honest, this is Bornstein's most intimate book yet, encompassing her early childhood and adolescence, college at Brown, a life in the theater, three marriages and fatherhood, the Scientology hierarchy, transsexual life, LGBTQ politics, and life on the road as a sought-after speaker.

Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels

Recently hailed as "the greatest cabaret artist of [V's] generation" in The New Yorker, Mx. Justin Vivian Bond makes a brilliant literary debut with this staggeringly candid and hilarious novella-length memoir. With a recent diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, and news that V's first lover from childhood has been imprisoned for impersonating an undercover police officer, Bond recalls in vivid detail coming of age as a trans kid. Always haunted by the knowledge of being "different," Bond was further confused when the bully next door wanted to meet secretly. Their trysts went on for years, and made Bond acutely aware of sexual power and vulnerability. With inimitable style, Bond raises issues about LGBTQ adolescence, homophobia, parenting, and sexuality, while being utterly entertaining.

Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

In 1951 George Jorgensen, an American man of 26, left for Denmark and returned a year later as the first world-renowned transsexual, Christine Jorgensen. In her own personable style, Jorgensen offers a firsthand account of her ground-breaking life. "Nature made a mistake," she wrote, "which I have corrected."

Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People, with a New Preface

In this innovative celebration of diversity and affirmation of individuality in animals and humans, Joan Roughgarden challenges accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation. A distinguished evolutionary biologist, Roughgarden takes on the medical establishment, the Bible, social science--and even Darwin himself. She leads the reader through a fascinating discussion of diversity in gender and sexuality among fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, including primates. Evolution's Rainbow explains how this diversity develops from the action of genes and hormones and how people come to differ from each other in all aspects of body and behavior. Roughgarden reconstructs primary science in light of feminist, gay, and transgender criticism and redefines our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality. A new preface shows how this witty, playful, and daring book has revolutionized our understanding of sexuality.

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out

In Beyond Magenta, six teens tell what it is like for them to be members of the transgender community. "I’ve always loved my body, and now I love it even more because it fits how I feel." - Jessy "Learn your pronouns because I don’t want to have to slap somebody tonight." - Christina “Transition? Everyone goes through one kind of transition or another. We go through transitions every day. Except mine is maybe a little more extreme." - Mariah

Transitions of the Heart: Stories of Love, Struggle and Acceptance by Mothers of Transgender and Gender Variant Children

Transitions of the Heart is the first collection to ever invite mothers of transgender and gender variant children of all ages to tell their own stories about their child’s gender transition. Often transitioning socially and emotionally alongside their child but rarely given a voice in the experience, mothers hold the key to familial and societal understanding of gender difference.

Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man

At first, America knew the only child of Sonny and Cher as Chastity, the cherubic little girl who appeared on her parents' TV show. In later years, she became famous for coming out on a national stage, working with two major organizations toward LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights and publishing two books. And just within the past 18 months, Chaz Bono has entered the public consciousness as the most high-profile transgender person ever.

Taken By Storm

Lives depend on two women when a train derails high in the remote Alps, but an unforgiving mountain, avalanches, crevasses, and other perils stand between them and safety. Associated Press reporter Hudson Mead is an extreme skiing enthusiast who has covered war zones and natural disasters during her long and distinguished career, but nothing could have prepared her for the challenges she'll face when the snow train she's riding is decimated by a massive avalanche.

Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform

Gay culture has become a nightmare of consumerism, whether it's an endless quest for Absolut vodka, Diesel jeans, rainbow Hummers, pec implants, or Pottery Barn. Whatever happened to sexual flamboyance and gender liberation, an end to marriage, the military, and the nuclear family? As backrooms are shut down to make way for wedding vows, and gay sexual culture morphs into “straight-acting dudes hangin’ out”, what are the possibilities for a defiant faggotry that challenges the assimilationist norms of a corporate-cozy lifestyle?

Sex Changes: A Memoir of Marriage, Gender, and Moving On

Christine Benvenuto had been married for more than twenty years - with three young children - when her husband turned to her one night in bed and said, "I'm thinking constantly about my gender." Unhappy in his body, he wanted to become a woman. Part memoir, part voyeur's look into a marriage, Sex Changes is a journey through the end of a marriage and out the other side.

This important audiobook combines authoritative information and humanitarian insight into the transsexual experience. Filled with wisdom and understanding, this groundbreaking book paints a vivid portrait of conflicts transsexuals face on a daily basis - and the courage they must summon as they struggle to reveal their true being to themselves and others. True Selves offers valuable guidance for those who are struggling to understand these people and their situations.

Teagan Winkler says:"I had a couple issues but good and comprehensive"

The Church of Fear: Inside the Weird World of Scientology

Tom Cruise and John Travolta say the Church of Scientology is a force for good. Others disagree. Award-winning journalist John Sweeney investigated the Church for more than half a decade. During that time he was intimidated, spied on, and followed, and the results were spectacular: Sweeney lost his temper with the Church's spokesman on camera, and his infamous 'exploding tomato' clip was seen by millions around the world.

For more than a century before gay marriage became a hot-button political issue, same-sex unions flourished in America. Pairs of men and pairs of women joined together in committed unions, standing by each other "for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health" for periods of 30 or 40 - sometimes as many as 50 - years. In short, they loved and supported each other every bit as much as any husband and wife. In Outlaw Marriages, cultural historian Rodger Streitmatter reveals how some of these unions didn’t merely improve the quality of life for the two people involved but also enriched the American culture.

Raising My Rainbow is Lori Duron’s frank, heartfelt, and brutally funny account of her and her family's adventures of distress and happiness raising a gender-creative son. Whereas her older son, Chase, is a Lego-loving, sports-playing boy's boy, her younger son, C.J., would much rather twirl around in a pink sparkly tutu, with a Disney Princess in each hand while singing Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi".

Just Add Hormones: An Insider’s Guide to the Transsexual Experience

Matt Kailey lived as a straight woman for the first forty-two years of his life, and then he changed. With the help of a good therapist, chest surgery, and some strong doses of testosterone, Kailey began living life as the man he’d always wanted to be. In Just Add Hormones, he answers all the questions you’ve ever had about what it’s like to live as a transsexual.

The Femme's Guide to the Universe

2012 Fabulousity Now! Shar has updated and newly pizzazed her classic with even more information for today's femmes (or those that love us). Part Cosmo, part On Our Backs, part Girl Scout Handbook, this hilarious, practical, and comprehensive guide is for Femme Dykes, Baby Divas, Experience Queens, Outrageous Goddesses, Queer Femmes, Lipstick Lesbians, Vixens, and Vamps of every stripe - and those who want to date us!

More than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory

Can you love more than one person? Can you have multiple romantic partners without jealousy or cheating? Absolutely! Polyamorous people have been paving the way through trial and painful error. Now the new book More Than Two can help you find your own way.

The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals

This comprehensive first of its kind guidebook explores the unique challenges that thousands of families face every day raising their gender variant children. Through extensive research and interviews, as well as years of experience working in the field, the authors cover gender variance from birth through college. What do you do when your toddler daughter’s first sentence is that she’s a boy? What will happen when your preschool son insists on wearing a dress to school?

It's the 21st century, and although we tried to rear unisex children - boys who play with dolls and girls who like trucks - we failed. Even though the glass ceiling is cracked, most women stay comfortably beneath it. And everywhere we hear about vitally important "hardwired" differences between male and female brains. The neuroscience that we read about in magazines, newspaper articles, books, and even scientific journals increasingly tells a tale of two brains, and the result is a validation of the status quo.

Publisher's Summary

The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology and Leaves Twelve Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She Is Today

A stunningly original memoir of a nice Jewish boy who joined the Church of Scientology and left 12 years later, ultimately transitioning to a woman. A few years later, she stopped calling herself a woman and became famous as a gender outlaw.

Kate Bornstein - gender theorist, performance artist, author - is set to change lives with her compelling memoir. Wickedly funny and disarmingly honest, this is Bornstein's most intimate book yet, encompassing her early childhood and adolescence, college at Brown, a life in the theater, three marriages and fatherhood, the Scientology hierarchy, transsexual life, LGBTQ politics, and life on the road as a sought-after speaker.

I don't know what to say about this book. It's different from any I ever remember reading. It's as unique as its author ... and even tho I know you can't qualify the word "unique," that means it's very, very unique. It's got the "I-must-not-tell-lies" ring of truth, yet it sounds as fantastical as a fairytale (or a nightmare). And it's very well written. It's also very well narrated--in a feminine voice that's almost too lilting --too lilting because the voice doesnt fit the second half of the book as well as it does the first half.

It's the author's personal tale, but I believe it's more a love letter from a parent to his lost child. Yes, the author was a father at the time his wife, one of the higher-ups in Scientology, went to live on the other side of the country without informing him that she didnt intend to come back, only informing him after arranging for him to send their daughter to her for a visit and, instead of sending the daughter back at the arranged time, sent instead Mexican divorce papers. The wife was only able to pull off this betrayal because they were all "trapped" in the Scientology hierarchy and her rank was higher than his.

The second half of the book is the author's life after Scientology. This entire book seems to me to be an entreaty for his daughter, "Jessica" to contact him before he dies. Of course, "he" is now a "she," and that's the story of the second half of the book. Here, the narrator's light and laffy tone is, IMO, not the best tone for some of the serious incidents portrayed. Pathos, I suppose, the word is. Personally, it's sad to me that such an obviously loving and giving person as the author should have met up with so many destructive people, but it's a tribute to Kate Bornstein's character that she has been able to maintain a positive and embracing attitude toward the stage of life and all the characters strutting there.

20130419 ◊ I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that Kate Bornstein never made a ping on my radar before. I vaguely remember hearing about "Gender Outlaws" many years ago, but honestly -- most books on queer/feminist/gender theory make me want to claw my eyes out. So even if I'd had prior knowledge of her performance art and life story to motivate me, I'm not convinced that I'd have dug into her earlier written work.

No matter! Fortunately for me - and for everyone even slightly interested in her life story - Ms. Bornstein has written a charming, compelling, intelligent, heart-wrenching, brutally honest, and deeply moving memoir that I cannot recommend highly enough. Part transsexual bildungsroman, part Scientology tell-all, and part love-letter to her estranged daughter and grandchildren: this book manages to weave each of these elements into a cohesive, riveting story without deteriorating into car-crash pathos or saccharine sweetness. A few descriptions of tranny/queer sex and bdsm might be shocking to some, but Bornstein presents these topics with such lusty good-will and compassion for her less kinky readers (at one point even directing them to the first sentence of the next section past a particularly intense sadomasochistic scene) that you can't help grinning at her delightful, consensual depravity. Or at least, I couldn't. :)

Bornstein's journey towards acceptance, integration, and self-fulfillment is both fascinating and inspiring. I can only hope that others wring as much enjoyment out of this book as I've been able to! It's been quite a while since I've felt actively grateful that a book was written, simply for my own greedy joy in the reading of it.

I'm Audible's first Editor-at-Large, the host of In Bed with Susie Bright -- and a longtime author, editor, journo, and bookworm. I listen to audio when I'm cooking, playing cards, knitting, going to bed, waking up, driving, and putting other people's kids to bed! My favorite audiobooks, ever, are: "True Grit" and "The Dog of the South."

Kate Bornstein writes books condemned by Pope Benedict. She's a self-identified jewish lesbian tattooed masochist tranny, with a titanium knee. She's the definition of an outlaw! So how did she get this way?

A Queer and Pleasant Danger is Kate's memoir, broken into three parts: growing up a Jewish boy in New Jersey, joining Scientology as an adult (and leaving 12 years later), and finally, transitioning into a woman, coming out as a lesbian, and joining the BDSM culture.

Kate's story is a deliciously matter-of-fact narrative, narrated by Alice Rosengard. Alice, coincidentally, went to college with Kate when she was known as "Al." They were friends! She called Kate up and they collaborated on the narration process— an unusual and delightful reunion.

What made the experience of listening to A Queer and Pleasant Danger the most enjoyable?

Kate Bornstein's writing. At the beginning of the memoir, she admits some parts will be lies. Listening to her finely crafted, beautifully spun narratives sucked you in so hard, you believed most of it until she confessed to telling a lie. Her writing was stunning, and this added element made it unpredictable, interesting, and most importantly, very human.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

Her honesty. She candidly relayed the most personal details of her incredible life, and openly discussed intimate details about her political views, moments of emotional vulnerability, changing relationship with gender, and more. It was like all the juicy parts of a great friendship that usually take years to be revealed all crammed into a gorgeous book.

What about Alice Rosengard’s performance did you like?

Alice Rosengard further cultivated the sultry, smart, youthful, joyful, brooding enigma of a character that Kate's work brought to life

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

I just looked up the tag line for "A Clear and Pleasant Danger," so I could riff on that, but its tag line is, "Truth needs a soldier," which is awful, so I'm just out of luck.

The title is so good, it doesn't need a tag line! Maybe, "From one SP to another," which is something you won't understand until you read the book. :)

Any additional comments?

This was easily my favorite memoir of all time. As a queer woman, and someone who works in the LGBTQ community, this book still taught me more about my friends, community, exes and our incredibly diversity and reliance than I ever thought imaginable.

I think I would probably recommend it to some of my friends. It's a somewhat fresh take on an ex-Scientology story, and much of the story is highly engaging, but the graphic descriptions of extreme S&M were hard to listen to at times (though she does provide warnings to skip ahead if you're squeamish) and maybe not consistent with the thing about being intended as a message to her daughter...

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

I would have toned down some of the S&M stuff. I'd have been more interested in a deeper exploration of what she gets out of this sort of relationship.

Probably not. I think once is enough to get the sense of this indomitable woman's life, and there are a few parts (rape, a grisly visit to a murder scene) that were difficult to hear.

Would you recommend A Queer and Pleasant Danger to your friends? Why or why not?

Absolutely, it's worth reading. It's such a great memoir. Kate Bornstein writes with joyful relish about her life, even the hard bits (especially the hard bits). And her life encompasses so many diverse movements - the swinging sixties university theatre scene, scientology, the transgender community, the lesbian community in many different cities, queer femme theatre, activism, bdsm. She's packed a lot of life in her sixty-something years and I feel humbled that she's shared it all with us. She's honest, open, and unashamed.

Have you listened to any of Alice Rosengard’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Nope, but I loved this one. I actually thought it was narrated by Bornstein until the end, Rosengard puts so much into her performance.

What made the experience of listening to A Queer and Pleasant Danger the most enjoyable?

I love kate bornstein and was delighted to learn and love even more about her life. I hear wholeness, a whole person, not just a story of a man then woman, or scientologist and not. Funny, wrenching, beautiful, full.

Have you listened to any of Alice Rosengard’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

First time listening to Alice rosenguard. At first I was missing Kate's voice but really felt Alice embodied her wonderfully.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

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